Why some old players will Never return

I have played UO since 1999 when my friend introduced the popular Ultima Online game to me. I started off in Pacific and later went on the Hokuto. Back then, the Japanese shards just came on and quite many of us went over and formed guilds there. I was in this guild called the Red Riders of Britannia. There were good times and bad times in the game, but they are all fond memories. I recalled waking up early on Sunday morning just to "chop" wood to sell for gold and buying that smallest house in the game.

Many years have passed and I have left UO twice and returned, most of the time due to work.

For the first departure, it was planned so I packed my stuff into the bank. Nothing was lost.

In the second departure, I was in a new shard and lost two 18x18 houses at favourite spots near a moongate in the city. It was lost because I was overwhelmed with tight work schedules and traveling around. I took the courage to return and started from scratch after losing quite a number of stuff including yearly rewards. Due to the low

About 18 months ago, I was sent overseas to work and was unable to play the game for a long time due to tight project schedules again. This time round I lost a Castle. That is nothing because anyway someone lost the castle to me. What matters are all the stuff that I have packed inside, my rewards, soulstones, gold, resources, etc.

They are all gone now, all that is left is my fond memories of UO and probably I might just drop by one day whenever the account is opened for old players to return.

But I will never pay for this game again. I know housing decay keeps players active. But it has also kept players like me from returning.

Most people, when they know they are going to leave the game for an extended time, pack up their valuables until they can return. Hell, most people will help you get the beetles for your characters and real friends will store some of your stuff.

The amount that one can pack up depends on your expansions...

Five to Seven characters:
A. 1 Giant beetle per character, with the character riding the beetle as they log out: 125 items, up to 1600 stone weight.
B. each character, fully dressed, plus 125 items up to 550 stone in your pack (doesn't really matter if you won't be able to move far - logging out in luna, you can use refresh pots or divine fury (if you have chivalry) to get to the stable to unload into freshly bought packies when you return). Heck, you could log out and time out in or above the stable.
C. Depending on if you've bought anything that gave capacity increase (for house and bank), 125 or 150 items (no weight limit) per bank box.

So, that's anywhere from 1875 to 2800 items per shard you can pack up (375-400 on Siege), not counting the clothes and armor worn by the character.

Just because you didn't think to take an hour of gameplay to pack up before you were sent overseas (or even while you were there, if you could spare a few minutes a day just to log in to pack) doesn't make it the GAME'S fault you lost everything.

For that matter, just because you were working overseas didn't suddenly cut off payment for your account - you had to do that on your own, actively or passively (by letting the payment method expire). There are some people paying for accounts that they've not played in years, just to keep their houses up for when they DO return - and if your project schedule was as tight as you claim, you probably didn't have much time to SPEND your pay while working, so I'm not seeing a reason for you to have stopped paying, if you were so concerned about your in-game property.

It sounds to me like you're just making excuses for your own lack of foresight.

EverQuest series, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, WOW, EVE Online, the Lineage series, RuneScape. Those have all either hit the 10th year mark or will definitely make it in a few years.

Plus a whole slew of Korean and Japanese MMOs that we've never heard about.

Looking at the older MMOs that are still around, it's depressing how few really made a go at player housing like UO did.

As for EVE, you'll find the PvP reminiscent of UO's early days since it's partly based off of UO, but it can be extremely brutal PvP. You would be best off finding a corporation (guild) or several players to work with before you get too heavily into it. Don't waste your early time mining or exploring, find somebody who would help you get into PvP as early as possible, you'll be hooked.

While we are ranting and talking about leaving... does anyone know of a mmporg with taming like uo that is not managed by EA? I checked some games but i couldn't find anything for my taming addiction (and that's why i came back).

I always forget Ashen Empires and Ragnarok Online, but I think Ragnarok has taming. They are both unique, and Ragnarok shows its Korean roots.

I don't think you'll find anything close to UO when it comes to taming, housing, and a few other things. I had high hopes for Lord of the Ring Online, but they have made a mess out of housing and shown no interest in doing something significant, which is really weird because housing could make them a lot of serious money under f2p.

I stumbled upon Guild Wars that has a ranger class with taming. It is a very different game but i have to say that it doesn't look bad. Let's see if EA/Mithyc can surprise me in the next six months of subcription i have. If anyone has some experience with the said game i would be interested in hearing your thought (compared to our beloved UO of course).

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